Tejgaon began as a wartime airfield. Wikipedia dates construction to 1941 and the first landing of a Royal Indian Air Force aircraft to early 1943; through the Burma campaign it was used by the RAF and the US Army Air Forces. A second strip was laid a few kilometres north at Kurmitola as its backup, and that decision shaped the next eighty years of aviation in Dhaka.

After Partition, Tejgaon became the first civil airport of East Pakistan and the Pakistan Air Force’s station in the eastern wing. On 1 March 1954 No. 14 Squadron was assigned here, and in 1971 it was still the only PAF fighter squadron in the east, flying Canadair Sabres. Many of the Bengali airmen who would found the Bangladesh Air Force had served in the PAF; one of them, Sergeant Zahurul Haque, was shot in custody in Dhaka Cantonment in February 1969 while on trial in the Agartala case, according to ISPR.

On 2 December 1970 a Cargolux CL-44J, TF-LLG, crashed on approach to Tejgaon; Wikipedia records four crew and three people on the ground killed and gives the cause as the gust lock engaging after a hydraulic fault. It is a reminder that the airfield was, first of all, a city airport.

When India and Pakistan went to war on 3 December 1971, Tejgaon was the Pakistani air force in the east. English Wikipedia’s account, drawing on both sides, says Indian Canberras struck the airfield on 4 December and that the PAF flew 32 sorties that day. The two sides’ claims do not match: Pakistan claimed 10 to 12 Indian aircraft, India claimed five Sabres shot down and three destroyed on the ground, and Wikipedia states that the PAF lost two Sabres in dogfights over Dhaka. None of these figures is independently confirmed.

What is not disputed is how the air battle ended. On 6 December four MiG-21s of Nos. 28 and 4 Squadrons, Indian Air Force, dropped 500 kg bombs on the runway and left two craters about 10 m wide; on 7 December a MiG-21 re-cratered it, and No. 28 Squadron hit Kurmitola, which had been operational until then. From that day the Sabres were effectively grounded, and the Indian Air Force kept returning to stop repairs.

On 8 December a Twin Otter flew nine Sabre pilots out to Burma; the rest left on 10 December. Eleven Sabres were left behind. Wikipedia says Bengali technicians made eight of them operational by March 1972; the Bangladesh Air Force dataset elsewhere on this site, following another source, says four were returned to service. The figure is uncertain and both are given here. Meanwhile the new air force’s own war had begun with Kilo Flight, formed on 28 September 1971 with an Otter, a Dakota and an Alouette (ISPR).

On 28 September 1977 Japan Airlines Flight 472 was hijacked and landed at Dhaka. The Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal A. G. Mahmud, negotiated with the hijackers from the control tower, according to Wikipedia; on 2 October 118 hostages were released at Dhaka.

In the early hours of the same day a mutiny broke out. Wikipedia says the mutineers came from the nearby Kurmitola air base and that about 700 soldiers and airmen stormed the Central Ordnance Depot at about 02:40. Eleven air force officers were killed, along with a 16-year-old civilian, Mohammed Enam; The Daily Star’s later review places the killings at Tejgaon.

The reprisal was far larger than the mutiny. Wikipedia, citing official records, states that 1,143 troops and airmen were hanged in the two months after 9 October; The Daily Star speaks of hundreds of airmen executed after summary trials. Those figures come from different sources and are not reconciled here. Wikipedia also records that President Ziaur Rahman considered replacing the air force with an army aviation wing.

Civil flights left Tejgaon for the new international airport at Kurmitola in 1981, and the old airfield came under Air Base Bashar. Wikipedia says the strip has been inactive since 1988, yet the civil aviation authority upgraded Tejgaon from STOL port to domestic airport status in October 2011, and the air force objected when the Dhaka metro was routed near it the same year. Part of the old airfield also serves as the National Parade Square.

The base itself is busy. Wikipedia lists the Bell 212s of No. 9 Squadron, the Mi-171Shs of No. 31 Squadron, the C-130Bs and Mi-171Es of No. 101 Special Airlift Squadron and the L-410s of No. 103 Air Transport Training Unit. ISPR opened a Helicopter Simulator Training Institute here in 2021 and, in September 2026, held the air force’s 55th anniversary parade in the C-130 hangar. How the Hercules reach a runway is the open question: ISPR places Bashar at Tejgaon in 2025 and in Dhaka Cantonment in 2026, and no source read says which runway it uses.